The Pride of Howard County

by Kevin Bachman

  Chapter 12

  Within a couple of weeks Gus and John had a routine down. They sat at the kitchen table and while drinking their morning coffee prioritized the things they needed to get done. At first the conversations were all business but after a while they loosened up and began to chat as friends.

  John was still staying in the motel and needed to do something about that. He had noticed what he assumed was a guest house across the road from where Gus’ house was.

  That evening as they were drinking iced tea on the porch John asked about the little house. Gus told him he had rented the house to other farm hands over the years but mainly it was used as a guest house. Grace was the one who had taken care of the house and he hadn’t even been over there since she had died, but if he wanted to take a look that would be fine.

  There were flower beds lining the sidewalk with perennials growing in them and with some weeding would be very attractive. The door creaked a little when the two men went inside. Other than a few spider webs and a layer of dust the place was clean as a whistle. The towels hung perfectly in the kitchen and bath exactly the way Grace had left them. John noticed a Bible placed on the bedside table.

  The old man thought of his wife as he showed the hired hand around.

  John thought this would be perfect for him and Muncie. He had some reservations about living so close to his employer but it sure would make getting to work much easier and save a lot of time driving back and forth.

  And so Gus wrote up a simple lease, had John sign it, gave him the address and the names of the utility companies he would need to contact. The Landlord collected the first month’s rent of three hundred dollars and a security deposit of three hundred. Gus let John know he was a little concerned about him having a dog and let it be known if the dog caused any problems the burden was on him to resolve the issue. He reminded John dogs that run cattle or horses or kill chickens etc. don’t have a future on a farm. The younger man assured the farmer he completely understood.

  He moved into his new place the following Sunday.

  John did some grocery shopping and picked up a few miscellaneous items for the house. This was the first real house he had lived in other than his parent’s and he was pretty excited. After his trailer he’d always rented apartments and having a whole house would be cool. He bought a barbeque grill and charcoal and was planning on christening his new place with a barbeque that night.

  The view from his back patio was nothing short of spectacular. Rolling green hills dotted with cattle and miles of fence rows surrounding the fields that would have corn and soybeans. Deer and wild turkeys were a common sight, rabbits were thick and ducks flew up and down the Piney River and landed on the ponds scattered around the farm. Bobwhite quail and Mourning doves whistled and cooed in the cool of the morning and late afternoons into the late evenings.

  Muncie thought he had died and gone to heaven, in about a month he had gone from living in a tiny pen in Muncie, Indiana to a cheap motel room and now he was free to run as fast and far as he possibly could. When John let him out of the car he circled the car a few times and then was gone. After about an hour when he realized he was completely lost he heard John calling for him and was greatly relieved. John took him down to the Piney for a refreshing swim to cool him off and hopefully get him acclimated to farm life. Muncie didn’t know it yet but his life was about to get better than he could have ever imagined.

  The two dogs spotted one another about the same time, Lucky made a “B” line straight for the trespasser with every intention of enforcing the no trespassing rule. She barking insanely, the hair along her back was standing up and she was in full fight mode. Muncie was a big dog and he had never been licked in a fight so he wasn’t too concerned yet he readied himself. Lucky was a bit taken back by this dog’s lack of fear. The coyotes had always run from her when it was a one on one fight. And then, something strange began happening to Lucky.

  It was as if for the first time Lucky became aware of her place in the universe. For millions of years her ancestors had been top predators, forming bonds in the form of packs to hunt and protect and love one another. Lucky was beginning to feel she could be a part of something bigger than herself. She became aware that she could live her entire life alone, she didn’t need another of her kind to survive but if she was to experience all that life has to offer she would have to allow it to happen. And so she did. For the first time in her life she felt the tingle of her kind’s affection. There was a calling for her to submit, just this once.

  And so there was no fight rather just a cautious posturing. They jumped around trying to sniff one another. Lucky didn’t like her butt sniffed and would nip Muncie each time he tried but he didn’t seem to mind.

  Together, these two young dogs would run under the wide open skies of Howard County, they would swim in the Piney, chase rabbits and curl up together at the end of the day. They were a pack of two; together they would sleep under Gus’s porch and dream about what adventures would wait for them the next day.

  John had the cleaning done, was putting things away and arranged the furniture the way he wanted. He was about to start the charcoal when he wondered if Gus might like to join him for a barbequed steak. He was questioning whether it would be appropriate for the hired hand to ask the farm owner over for supper. Eventually he decided to forget about social graces and went across the road finding his boss watching 60 minutes on television. Gus agreed that a barbequed steak sounded good and told John he’d be over in a few minutes. Lucky and Muncie were following John back and forth and were glad when the two men were finally together in the same place as this really uncomplicated things.

  The baked potatoes were in the oven, they snacked on chips while the coals burned down low enough so John could put the steaks on. The farmer reminded his hired help he wouldn’t need to buy any more meat now that he was working on a cattle farm.

  The two men sat out on the patio silently eating their ribeyes, baked potatoes, green beans and buttered bread as the sun sank below the horizon. They talked a little shop until Gus asked, “So John, where was ya raised up?”

  John told the story about how he was originally from Athens, Georgia moved to New York for a job, lived there for a few years and picked Howard County completely at random. The farmer found this a little odd and sensed there was more to the story. He admired this young mans courage. John wanted to tell Gus more but held his tongue. Someday he might tell Gus about his alcoholism but not just yet. Someday, he may tell Gus certain aspects of his personal life but it just didn’t seem like the right time.

  Gus and John moved inside once the mosquitoes started biting and settled into the two chairs in the living room in front of the television. Without cable or a dish there wasn’t much to choose from so John clicked it off and turned on the radio. He would have preferred a progressive rock station but for his boss’s sake dialed in a country music station.

  Settling back into his chair John asked his boss, “Mr. Rogers, how is it you became a farmer?”

  Gus found this to be an interesting question. He hadn’t really ever considered doing anything else. It was just normal for him to be a farmer. He then told his new hand how he’d inherited the farm from his father.

  Cecil Rogers grew up poor in the cotton country of Texas. His parents were share croppers and so Cecil spent his youth picking cotton for the rich folks. Cecil was a mean brawler and Gus and his sister lived in fear of their father.

  Gus’s old man came home from WW1 with a silence and a box of medals he quickly stashed away in the attic and never talked about. It was the soldier’s intent to go to his grave without reliving the war. For many years, the nightmares haunted him to the point he would sit up into the late hours of the night long after his wife and children had gone to bed. Whiskey and hard work were the only two things that brought relief to Cecil. He knew the war damaged him but didn’t know how to make the battles go away. From time to time a little piece of serenity would catch the veter
an off guard and then the mental images of his friends getting blown to pieces would return. He had made it home and they died. He could never figure out why this was.

  Cecil had made a promise to God in the foxholes of Europe, and so he was a religious man not by choice but rather because he was a man of his word. As the bombs exploded around him he realized a man’s word was the only thing that would keep him alive.

  Cecil had always felt badly his family couldn’t provide him with the love he so desperately needed. He knew they were victims of that damned war just as he was but they would have to try to understand.

  Cecil used his savings and GI bill to borrow enough money from the bank to buy forty acres in Missouri. He wanted to get as far away from Texas as he could get. Through the droughts, floods, depressions and recessions he built the farm up to nearly a thousand acres, quite a feat considering the times.

  John was impressed by Gus’s story but more impressed with Gus’s ability to tell it. Most people with difficult backgrounds find it nearly impossible to share with anyone fearing it would reflect badly on them. The trained councilor knew this took genuine confidence and knew from personal experience it took a lot to overcome a tragic beginning.

  Margaret Rogers, Cecil’s wife, was a woman of few words and even fewer smiles. She was overburdened by the cooking, cleaning, canning and raising her two children. Margaret was beat down by her husband’s mood swings and backhands but loved and cared for her children with all her heart. Her husband drank whiskey and read the Bible just about every night. The Bible said; spare the rod spoil the child and Cecil certainly didn’t spare the rod. On one occasion his father beat him so badly for throwing rocks at the chickens he had to stay home from school for a few days until the bruises healed and that was not the last time that would happen.

  Sometimes on Saturday nights the old man would disappear and come home with gifts for everyone but sometimes he would come home smelling of liquor and be in one of his dark moods. Gus would pull the covers up over his head and hope it wasn’t his turn to feel the wrath of his father’s drunken rage. Usually it was his mother. The young Gus would lie in his bed and flinch when he heard the sound of his father’s hand hitting his mother’s face. She never fought back or she never cried. It was Margaret who would place herself between the whiskey mean man and her children knowing full well she would get the beating. It was Gus’s mother who would put salve on her children and sing them to sleep after her husband had whipped them with a belt. She’d grown up poor, in a violent home and always felt fortunate to have a man that was a successful farmer, a man of God and could be a loving father. She just came to believe all men were unpredictable with streaks of violence in them. She was living her mother’s life and she didn’t allow herself to wonder if things could be any better. She was married to Cecil; they had two healthy children, a big house on a big farm and always had plenty of food. As far as Margaret was concerned what else could a woman possible want.

  Gus laughed when he saw John watching him so intently. He hadn’t spoken of his parents for many years, not since he and Grace were young. There was a time when thinking of his father caused him a great anger. One of the biggest regrets of his life was he hadn’t kicked the shit out of his father for treating his mother so cruelly. He had read articles about bi-polar and depression and had wondered if his father hadn’t suffered from something such as that. He had always considered his father a drunk and held deep resentments against him until his death many years ago. After they laid him in the ground the hatred turned to memories and finally dissolved into time.

  Gus stood up and said, “Okay, enough for now.” The two men quietly laughed, and John thanked him for coming for supper. The old farmer headed for the door and without turning around said, “See ya in the morning partner.” Just before he walked out the door he added, “And from now on call me Gus.”

  John cleaned up the kitchen and was looking forward to settling into the Lay-Z-Boy. Lucky had gone home with Gus and Muncie had collapsed on the cool tile floor in the kitchen and was soon twitching in his dreams.

  John called George just to chat about things. George asked if he was going to meetings, John had to tell the truth but promised he would do better. After hanging up he sat in the near darkness listening to the Sunday night classic country music show playing softly on the radio and listened to Muncie snore. John was thinking of his new boss and how different he was from his father. How Gus could communicate his feelings, how he could laugh and how he seemed to enjoy life.

  Spring was turning into summer, and the days were warming up. John was responsible for getting the crops planted while Gus concentrated on the cattle. Soon they would have hay to cut and then there were the horses, chickens, mowing, equipment breakdowns, fences to mend and on and on. On rainy days they sharpened blades, serviced the tractors, made trips to town for supplies and groceries and the endless paperwork.

  This was light years away from any kind of work that John had done since he was a kid. In the beginning there were nights every cell in his body ached. He had blisters on his hands that oozed blood and puss and he was using muscles he didn’t even know he had. But several tubes of Ben-Gay and lots of Advil later his body transformed into a lean farming machine. He was tanned dark as a bear, his dirty blond hair was sun bleached and it was longer than he had worn it for years. His redwings were now well broke in and he had traded his ball cap for a cowboy hat.

  There were days when the two men hardly ever saw one another working independently as John caught on pretty quickly what he needed to do. The former New Yorker found the solitude soothing. Most days he still thought about those final days of drinking and only now was getting a full appreciation of how close he had gone to the edge. In those last days, he wasn’t sure there would ever be good times again. He had figured he had been given his chance to have a good life and had blown it only to live out some miserable existence as some boring sober person.

  John made contact with the local AA chapter and begun to attend a couple of meetings a week, much to George’s relief. He gladly drove the thirty miles to Columbia, a thriving college town with a very solid AA community. The group he attended had a wide variety of young and old, professionals and blue collar members and a few gay members. In no time at all he felt completely at ease, even began to chair meetings on occasion.

  Summer was in full swing, the days were now hot with a dry wind blowing across the land. John’s planting had paid off as most of the crops were over a foot tall and growing. For him it was a spiritual experience how those little seeds, planted in the dirt and with a little rain produced plants that would one day give life. He was beginning to understand the connection between farmers and the spirit world. It was a getting back to the very basics of life; farmers produced the substance that sustains life throughout the world. John had spent most of his life with a mentality of materialism. He had believed if one could collect enough, impress enough people with his collection of things, then his worth would be higher. But a paradigm shift was taking place in his thinking and a whole new world was opening up. He was beginning to realize his true potential as his mind was no long fettered with society’s ideas of success. Once again, he was beginning to understand that he had allowed the opinions of others to determine how he felt about himself. He had yet to meet a farmer who wasn’t humble and yet it was these farmers who made it possible for all of humanity to exist. It was this humility that he found so impressive and one day would like to possess. And so it was his belief that something much bigger than he had directed him to Howard County.

  One particular Saturday evening a group of AA’s were having pizza after the meeting. The talk was small and light with jokes and funny stories about so and so when the conversation turned political. Many in the program feel such subjects are off limits and while at the meetings they are, but at the Pizza Hut anything goes.

  There was a Jewish lady there by the name of Helen. She spoke of how the upcoming elections were so important
and how important is was that everyone gets out and vote. A few in the group fell silent and seemed to concentrate really hard at eating their slice of pizza. The vocal Helen continued; “Women have been treated so poorly in the past, denied equal rights such as the right to vote and choose whether to have careers or become mothers.”

  Even though Cliff and Andy tried to change the subject Helen persisted on. She lit into the political opposition party that in her opinion supported suppression.

  An African-American man by the name of Michael Joined the conversation after having sat there quietly for much of the evening. Michael finally felt as if he had something to add to the conversation. He tried to explain that he and his ancestors had an entirely different American experience, something white folks couldn’t possibly fully comprehend.

  Cliff and Andy attempted to change the subject again but without any success.

  Michael explained how he loved America, considers it the best country in the world and yet discrimination is still an issue within our country. He boldly told the group he knew it made people uncomfortable to hear a black man complain and he wasn’t trying to be disrespectful but talking about such things is the only path to changing things for the better.

  A lady by the name of Mary joined in and painfully confessed to the group she was an incest survivor and if she didn’t have her therapist and the program of AA to help her overcome her drinking problem she would have probably killed herself a long time ago. Mary said, “Thank God, we have a place to go and talk about these things.” She spoke of how for so long she felt damaged and alone and felt she would never be able to have a life she was content with.

  By now, Cliff and Andy had given up trying to change the subject.

  There was a moment of silence and John realized that he was being given his opportunity to share. He began by saying, “As a gay American, I can relate to what you guys are talking about, I live in a country that treats me as a second class citizen. Even though we have made tremendous progress homophobia is still very much alive and well.”

  Then a woman by the name of Debby spoke. She eloquently reminded everyone, even Cliff and Andy, that for much of our lives we all lived in the dark. We hid our past and hid our secrets thinking we were all alone and no one would ever understand. Because of a fear of being cast as freaks or damaged we locked ourselves in our own little prisons. And yet, now we know it’s our problems and our past that has brought us here together tonight. Without our defects we wouldn’t have each other. Without our defects we wouldn’t have the friendships and relationships that we have. And without these relationships many of us would have wound up in hospitals or some kind of institution, maybe even the grave yard but certainly at the very least, alone.

  The group fell silent as each person was reflecting on their own personal place in this motley group of beautiful souls. And then Cliff said, “Amen” and Andy said, “I’ll second that.”